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computer and stood before her
interactive walls. The contents of the little device came up empty
on her screen. Thousands of pages of information were gone. This
wasn't enough to stump a seasoned journalist such as herself.
Isabelle searched for the round-baskets article again on the
Internet, but all her attempts failed. The file was nowhere to be
found. Isabelle didn't know it was Gene's new-truth silo who had
deleted the file from its own server and any other computers on the
net, but something seemed a bit suspicious to her. A knock on the
door. Isabelle answered and Ryan came into her office at the
perfect moment. He was on top of the world that morning. The new
computer system he managed was every programmer's dream. As
confident and clever as Ryan was when it came to technology, around
Isabelle he literally tripped over his own feet. Ryan’s
schoolboy-crush on Isabelle began the first day of his employ at
the media center.
    Isabelle was very confident, smart and
without a doubt the most beautiful woman who had ever talked to
him. Ryan spent most of his time behind computers. He had the
looks, but his lack of social interaction had made attractive women
appear to him as all too elusive. Ryan just didn't know what to say
or how to act around members of the opposite sex when they were
more than mere digital simulations. Isabelle was glad to see Ryan;
who better to help with the computer problems she had
encountered.
    "Hi Ryan, nice to see you."
    "Really? I mean - nice to see you, too."
    He responded while pushing his glasses up on
his nose. His nervousness showed. Perspiration kept causing his
glasses to slide down his nose. Isabelle smiled. She took it as
flattery that an intelligent man such as Ryan would become so
unraveled by her presence. He was convinced that Isabelle would be
attracted to the fact that he ran the world's most powerful
computer system. "How is the new system working for you?" he asked
with great anticipation. Ryan's bubble of pride was about to
pop.
    "Not so well. I've been running into all
kinds of problems."
    Ryan gulped, "What kind of problems?"
    Isabelle's answer was short. "This."
    She typed "ball lightning, folklore, energy"
into a search screen. Isabelle selected one of the results. A story
from Asia appeared:
    Heavenly Phantom-Ships With
Lanterns .
    As quickly as it appeared, the text vanished.
An error message flashed across the length of both walls.
    Invalid Account - Access Denied
    This left even Ryan a bit dumbfounded. "That
shouldn't happen," was the best answer he could muster for the
moment.
    Ryan had come to Isabelle's office to hear
how impressed she was with his new system but instead, it locked
her out completely. He felt like a knight who fell off the horse
before his fair maiden. Still, Isabelle had more problems to
report. "I've had trouble with the biometrics reader at the garage
this morning, too."
    Suddenly Ryan saw a chance to regain
Isabelle's favor. With a triumphant smile, he pulled a little
device out of his pocket that looked a lot like a laser-pointer.
With pride back in his voice, he told Isabelle, "I have a way
around the retina scans for you." Ryan twisted the end of the
little silver cylinder in his hand. A holographic eyeball appeared
at its end. He handed the device to an amazed Isabelle and
continued.
    "It's a skeleton key. You can have it, if you
like."
    "Ryan, you're brilliant. Thank you."
    "I came up with it because I got tired of
getting blinded by the scanners all day. This way you won't get
stuck outside."
    Ryan could feel the blood rushing to his
face. He didn't want Isabelle to see him blush. Ryan hurriedly
assured her that he was going to look into the computer problems
right away and rushed out of her office.

 
    6 ISABELLE AND DR. KENSHIN'S SECRET
    At the A pophis P article A ccelerator B erlin , a
luminous orb was racing through the facility’s circular tunnel at
speeds yet unmatched by man’s vehicles and projectiles. The ball of
light travelled